


Need

by Dominatrix



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: But he loves her anyway, F/M, Hurt, Romance, She's not good for him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2013-11-16
Packaged: 2018-01-01 18:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1047401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dominatrix/pseuds/Dominatrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She always calls him for help.<br/>And he always comes.<br/>Until one time, he doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Need

**Chicago/Prague. 1542.**

The first time she reaches out for him he hasn’t heard of her for over twenty years. It’s a letter, a letter in hasty handwriting, so very different from the beautiful font he knows from her, the false promises she once wrote on his chest with her own blood, beautiful and stunning like rubies flickering in candle light. _Help me. I am in Prague. I need you. He is coming for me._

She doesn’t need to write who it is. Elijah knows. If there is one man that’s even more at Katerina Petrova’s heels than he is, it is his brother Klaus. Maybe he hopes to find peace in killing Katerina, maybe he sees a deeper sense in bloodthirsty slaughtering, or maybe he would just be bored without the eternal, ever ongoing chase across all continents. Either way, Elijah’s heart is too kept by Katerina for him to leave her fate to herself.

It will always be like this when it comes down to her being in danger. Officially he will be helping his brother in tracking down Katerina like a pack of blood hounds would track down a fox, but he would always send her a message so she could escape just soon enough.

Of course Elijah doesn’t know this yet. But he will do it. Again and again. He can’t put a finger on what it was in the beginning that made him take a step away from his loyalty to his family, towards this Bulgarian flame, this tornado. She wrecks everything she touches, and Elijah knows – he knows – that one day she will wreck him too. But right now he loves her too much to care.

**Brussels/Cologne. 1690.**

The fourth time she calls him for help, he is furious with her. She had left him alone in a house that didn’t even belong to her, and he had some trouble compelling the whole family when they returned from their trip to the city and found a rather undressed Elijah sprawled out in front of the fire. _Elijah. I need you._ She doesn’t write that he owes her something because she knows it is not like this.

He doesn’t owe her a damn thing, because she uses him like a funny little muppet she plays with whenever she desires too.

Or maybe he owes her the whole world, because she was the one that made his heart feel beating again and his soul like it finally was at rest.

He is never sure about this part.

**London/London. 1895**

The nineteenth time she has to ask for a favour they are both in London. Katherine flings her arms around his neck when he bursts into her room without knocking after rushing up the stairs, leaving a shocked and outraged maid behind. He doesn’t refuse her embrace, though he wants to because he knows that it is getting harder to let her go every single time they actually meet. In the end she will always leave him, and he will be left like the fool he is. All by himself, only waiting – longing – for Katherine to send him a message, asking for salvation and safety. And he always gives it to her.

The next morning, Katherine is still alive, all soft skin and silky hair next to him under the covers. When he pulls her closer, he feels her muscles tense, and he doesn’t even have time to develop a feeling like disappointment. In minutes, she is fully clothed and out the door with a mumbled apology that doesn’t sound like she really wants him to believe it. It doesn’t really matter. He will always come for her. But every time she leaves him like this, a part of him shatters.

**New Orleans/Mystic Falls. 2013.**

The twenty-third time she needs him, he looks at his phone with a frown. He had said goodbye to her quite a while ago, and yet his heart itches with a strange feeling when he sees her name on the screen. He likes to imagine that it is rather nostalgia than love, but in fact he knows that he lies to himself. Unfortunately, the fury about Katherine Pierce has never really outweighed the passion he felt for her, the desire and admiration he still feels after all these centuries.

_Elijah, I’m dying. Please. I need you._

These three words. These three words she could write down so easily, but she never said them to his face. Maybe if she had, if she had ever actually thanked him for saving her life so many times, his response would have been different. But looking at his life now, all the trouble with a megalomaniac brother who wants to be king of the world, a haunted sister who longs for death after all these years being young, enduring while everyone around her withers and decays, and himself not being sure at all what he wants, what he feels and who he really is except a shattered, lonely man…He recognizes there is no longer room for Katherine Pierce.

He deletes the message without a second thought and tries to suppress the burning ache in his chest, the ashy taste in his mouth. He fails.

He has always failed when it comes to Katherine.


End file.
